Close Quarters

by Kandi Steiner

“Here’s to tall ships, and small ships, and all the ships at sea,” Joel said, and the crew finished the end of the toast with him. “But the best ships are friendships, so here’s to you and me.”

“How could a seemingly ordinary girl from Colorado who wasn’t even supposed to be on my boat at all, become the center of my focus and attention, of my every

“I have spent my whole life devoted to work,” he’d said. “It’s all I’ve known. But now that I know you, I wish to never work again.”

“I’m serious. You see the world in the most real, raw way. You don’t have a desire to filter it, or embellish it, to make it more or less than exactly what it is. Instead, you strive to capture the beauty in the everyday, the extraordinary in the mundane. And what’s more impressive, you achieve it.” I was speechless, and Theo seemed to know the way he smirked down at me. “More than all that, you are kind. And humble. You’re completely unaware of how powerful your presence is, how breathtakingly beautiful you are, and how you have this light about you that shines so bright you can only have one of two reactions from those around you. Either they want to bathe in your light, or they want to dim it so it doesn’t outshine their own.”

“You are the voice I’ve always been afraid to have.” Theo held me closer. “And you are the life I’ve been waiting to live.”

“You, Aspen Dawn, are different in every possible way. You have ignited a spark in me that no one else ever has, or ever could. I desire you for my own more than I desire anything.” Theo

“I want to be with you,” he whispered, kissing my neck. “Now. Tonight. Tomorrow. Next week. For as long as I can see my life, I see you in it.”